1. Field
The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to handheld electronic devices that employ a text disambiguation function and, more particularly, to an improved method of displaying character combination choices that are generated by a text disambiguation function on the handheld electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many such handheld devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices.
Such handheld electronic devices are generally intended to be portable, and thus are of a relatively compact configuration in which keys and other input structures often perform multiple functions under certain circumstances or may otherwise have multiple aspects or features assigned thereto. With advances in technology, handheld electronic devices are built to have progressively smaller form factors yet have progressively greater numbers of applications and features resident thereon. As a practical matter, the keys of a keypad can only be reduced to a certain small size before the keys become relatively unusable.
One way of providing numerous letters in a small space has been to provide a “reduced keyboard” in which multiple letters, symbols, and/or digits, and the like, are assigned to any given key. For example, a touch-tone telephone includes a reduced keyboard by providing twelve keys, of which ten have digits thereon, and of these ten keys, eight have letters assigned thereto. For instance, one of the keys includes the digit “2” as well as the letters “A”, “B”, and “C” assigned thereto. Since a single actuation of such a key potentially could be intended by the user to refer to any of the letters “A”, “B”, and “C”, and potentially could also be intended to refer to the digit “2”, the input (by actuation of the key) generally is an ambiguous input and is in need of some type of disambiguation in order to be useful for text entry purposes.
In order to enable a user to make use of the multiple letters, digits, and the like on any given key in a reduced keyboard, a software-based text disambiguation function is utilized. In such a system, a user typically presses keys to which one or more characters have been assigned, generally pressing each key one time for each desired letter, and the disambiguation software attempts to disambiguate the intended input. One example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/931,281, entitled “Handheld Electronic Device With Text Disambiguation,” the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. As is known, many such systems display an output component as the user is typing (pressing keys) that includes a list of possible intended input character strings (i.e., possible interpretations of what the user intended while typing) that are generated by the disambiguation software.
In many current software-based text disambiguation systems, an output component, which includes the list of possible intended inputs that is generated by the disambiguation software, is output on the display of the handheld electronic device. A problem arises when the length of a possible intended input is so large that the remaining possible intended inputs cannot fit on the display. Additionally, another problem also arises when the number of possible intended inputs is so high that all of the possible intended inputs cannot fit on the display. In these situations, the list is typically split and the user must take some additional action, such as scrolling a thumbwheel or pressing a predetermined function button, to move from one possible intended input to the next possible intended input. The shortcoming with current systems, however, is that the indicators, which indicate that there are additional possible intended inputs beyond the one possible intended input that is currently being displayed, do not adequately tell the user where the additional possible intended inputs are located in relation to the possible intended input that is currently being displayed.